Ember Lab has officially unveiled Kena: Scars of Kosmora, a full sequel to the award‑winning Kena: Bridge of Spirits, during Sony’s February 2026 State of Play. The reveal marks a bold return to one of PlayStation’s most visually striking new worlds, but this time the tone is older, heavier, and more ambitious.
🌿 A Spirit Guide No Longer Defined by the Dead
When we last saw Kena in 2021, she was a young Spirit Guide learning to help restless souls find peace. The sequel reframes her role entirely. Now older and widely respected, Kena is drawn to the remote island of Kosmora in search of answers to a mysterious affliction she has carried since childhood. The island’s cultures, ruins, and buried tragedies set the stage for a story that expands the emotional and thematic scope of the original.
⚡ A Staff Shattered, A New Power Awakened
The inciting moment of Scars of Kosmora is brutal: a powerful corruption shatters Kena’s staff, the very tool that defined her identity and survival. Stripped of her familiar abilities, she’s forced to embrace Kosmora’s forgotten, dangerous form of Spirit Guiding—one rooted in elemental manipulation and ancient alchemy. This shift introduces new combat depth, puzzle mechanics, and a more dynamic relationship with the environment.
🌀 The Rot Return — But Changed
Kena’s beloved spirit companions, the Rot, return with expanded roles. They’re not just helpers; they’re conduits for her new elemental abilities. Their evolution mirrors Kena’s own—still adorable, still mischievous, but now tied to a deeper, more volatile magic.
The Backstory: How We Got Here
To understand Scars of Kosmora, it helps to revisit the emotional DNA of the first game.
🌸 The Legacy of Bridge of Spirits
The original game centered on grief, guilt, and healing. Kena helped spirits confront the pain that bound them to the world, often at great personal cost. Each encounter left a mark—literal and emotional—on her. Those scars become the thematic foundation of the sequel.
🌑 The Affliction
Ember Lab hints that Kena’s lifelong affliction may be tied to her early exposure to spiritual energy, long before she understood its consequences. Kosmora, with its fractured cultures and tragic past, appears to hold the key to understanding why Kena was drawn to the Spirit Guide path in the first place.
🏝️ Kosmora’s Forgotten History
Kosmora isn’t just a new map—it’s a character.
The island’s regions are shaped by a calamity that splintered its people and unleashed the corruption now threatening Kena. Ancient Spirit Guides once practiced elemental alchemy here, but their methods were dangerous, even self‑destructive. Kena’s journey forces her to walk the same path, risking the same fate.
A More Ambitious Sequel
Everything about Scars of Kosmora signals a studio leveling up:
- Deeper combat with elemental forms and fractured‑staff techniques
- Larger, more varied environments with distinct cultures
- More cinematic storytelling woven into exploration
- Epic boss encounters that push Kena’s new abilities to their limits
- A focus on helping the living, not just the dead, expanding the moral and emotional stakes
The sequel is slated for PS5 and PC, launching sometime in 2026.
